Submissions

Submissions are limited to the ground game. When on top, you can initiate a submission any time by clicking the right stick. While on the bottom, you can initiate a submission by clicking the right stick just as your opponent throws a punch. Time it right, and you'll reverse the strike into a submission hold, though if you don't submit your opponent from that, he will remain in an advantageous position when the hold is released.

Submissions have changed this year, but with some practice, you'll be all right. The biggest tip we can offer here was given to us directly from a producer of the game. Basically, submissions attempts are based on a couple things. The first is stamina: the higher the attacker's stamina, the better the chance it will work; and the higher the victim's stamina, the better the chance it will be blocked. It seems that if both players' stamina is equal, and all else is equal, the attacker will win it and the fight will end by submission.

However, there is another factor involved here. Regardless of whether you're doing the submission or you're in it, you need to spin the right stick either counterclockwise or clockwise, continually, until the move breaks. The game's producer sends along the tip that your "shine" needs to be smooth. "Shine," in this case, ripped from the original The Karate Kid, refers to the smoothness of the motion of circling the stick.

Let me put it another way. If you circle your analogue stick repeatedly, but do so too quickly, you'll hear the clatter of the stick hitting the plastic of the controller. This is a "bad shine." If you're smooth on the stick, and can circle it at the very edge of the stick's limit, you'll hear no clatter. This is a "good shine."

Your shine—which unfortunately is not translated in any way on-screen—greatly impacts your submission skill. IGN Help Editor-in-Chief Mark Ryan Sallee has beaten several other editors around the office while 1) using a fighter with lower Submission Attack than his opponent's Submission Defense ratings, 2) while having about equal stamina as his opponent, and 3) while circling the stick slower than his opponent. He pulled it off because his shine was good: his movements on the stick were smooth, there was little clatter heard of the stick slamming into the controller case, and as a result the opponent tapped out.

Your shine impacts submissions both on offense and defense. Say you're facing a real-life opponent who is attempting a submission and, in his haste to circle his stick, you hear him clattering away. If your shine is better than his, you will likely get out of the submission hold. You'll both take a stamina hit, but he'll take a worse one, and probably will get really upset as a result (which you might be able to take advantage of!).

Sadly, there is no way to practice your shine. The best we can advise is head into Practice Mode, then just practice your submissions. Listen to your controller, as strange as that sounds: if you hear the telltale click-click-click of your controller, that means you need to practice your shine and work on circling the stick smoothly. There is no way to "hear" how well the AI does against you, so you just practice your own shine, and you'll eventually get better and better.

UFC Undisputed 2010 is a catch-all when it comes to submissions. That is, unlike real life, you can't really pick a body part to work on and make your submissions easier. What it comes down to is four things, which we think in order are: the shine of the stick circling, the fighters' submission ratings, the speed of the stick circling, and the fighters' stamina.

The best way we found to guarantee a submission was to weaken your opponent beforehand. With enough kicks to the ribs from standing, your opponent will get rocked very easily. From there, you can do a takedown, slap on a submission, and probably submit him because his stamina is just that low. He can still get out if your shine is bad or if your ratings are terrible, but in general, attempting a submission on a fighter who is rocked is almost guaranteed to work. If you want to see an example of that, check out our video tip, showing my created fighter Javier "Big Papi" Hernandez forcing Anderson Silva to submit!